Possible GPU upgrades
- Thread starter autoapprentice
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If it's a quality name brand unit it's not going to be an issue. What PSU do you have?
Phanteks AMP 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply
Asuming it's a modern PSU with a most of the output on the 12V rail, you'll be fine especially since you're using it in a mainstream AMD platform and your CPU will only draw like 6-7A at max load and the GPU will draw an estimated 25A, the rest of the system shouldn't use that much, you should have well over 40A available on a good quality 650W PSU.
That's a great, Seasonic-built unit. It will be fine for a 7800XT.
Edit: as per my UPS, my whole system power, including 4K monitor, lamps on my desk, and PC itself, with an i5-11600K and RX 6950 XT which is a hungrier GPU than a 7800 XT, uses 620W - and that's with a CPU stress test and FurMark torturing the GPU, so pretty much worse case scenario.
I found the specs, it can handle upto 54A on the 12V rail that'll power a 6800XT and a 65W CPU no problem with a good 20A to spare.
Holy cow. Why do they over estimate the PSU wattage?
Do you mind linking the information about the 12V rail please?
They can't account for all variables. There are less and less junk PSUs on the market now - most are at least halfway decent and can output their rated wattage - but they don't know that for sure. Plus, they have no idea what the rest of your components are. You could have a dozen hard drives in there! THey don't know - so a higher than neccessary recommended PSU is an easy way for the manufacturer to decrease the likelihood you'll have power issues.
Newegg list it at 12V@54A, so do a few other places if you Google it, you could also verify it by checking the label on the side of your unit.
Also these days even high end mainstream CPUs from a certain blue company can exceed over 250W while boosting.
So much for e-cores
e for efficiency. Riiiiight.
I see it. Thank you!
Efficiently turning electricity into heat*So much for e-cores
You are correct in that they really crippled the bus speed on the 4060ti and I have an 8gb version that was a letdown but I kinda knew that going in on the frontend. I don't know what Nvidia was thinking and doesn't seem like they were basically giving you a model that is perceived to be performance but then crippled the bejeezus out of it.
Typically the ti cards have slightly better performance but not this one, I also have a 3060 12gb and it's more of a sidegrade to me, some games may have slight improvements but others maybe a lil bit less. Maybe if I could've gotten the extra ram it would do better? but the bus speed is definitely the limiting factor with this card.
Awhile back I built a socket 1700 system to replace the Xeon that I've been using when I got around to finishing it the MSI board had issues, it's a z690 and evidently the chipset was plagued with power issues. Mine wouldn't reset and reboot, you could shut it down manually and power it back in but when trying to reboot the system it would hang up. I sent it to MSI who supposedly repaired it but when I received it back wouldn't even post at all, it would power on but no display or anything, the next time they sent a different board which does work. I had to go through some hoops but MSI did take care of me in the end. I still haven't finished building it, after all that mess of trying to get it repaired I ended up using some of the parts for other systems. I did purchase another PSU and I think all that's left is a case but need to decide which GPU I want to go with so I can choose a case that will work. I can still use the 4060ti for now but I definitely want to upgrade.
Typically the ti cards have slightly better performance but not this one, I also have a 3060 12gb and it's more of a sidegrade to me, some games may have slight improvements but others maybe a lil bit less. Maybe if I could've gotten the extra ram it would do better? but the bus speed is definitely the limiting factor with this card.
Awhile back I built a socket 1700 system to replace the Xeon that I've been using when I got around to finishing it the MSI board had issues, it's a z690 and evidently the chipset was plagued with power issues. Mine wouldn't reset and reboot, you could shut it down manually and power it back in but when trying to reboot the system it would hang up. I sent it to MSI who supposedly repaired it but when I received it back wouldn't even post at all, it would power on but no display or anything, the next time they sent a different board which does work. I had to go through some hoops but MSI did take care of me in the end. I still haven't finished building it, after all that mess of trying to get it repaired I ended up using some of the parts for other systems. I did purchase another PSU and I think all that's left is a case but need to decide which GPU I want to go with so I can choose a case that will work. I can still use the 4060ti for now but I definitely want to upgrade.
So about 400w at the power supply? Net is different than at the UPS.. the UPS number has conversion losses too over 10% usually
Of course the power supply has to cover the power spikes to so you want extra capacity. I also think a seasonic based 650w is ok.
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There are a lot of misconceptions here that I am facepalming at.
Firstly, per AMD's official specs, none of their GPU's require a 700w powersupply except the 6950xt, 7900xt and xtx. 600W is more than plenty for a 7800xt.
Second, the recommended power supply is to prevent any kind of failure and thus power spike/voltage spike. This does not mean that your GPU will consume the entire PSU's rated power, as a matter of fact, when gaming, NOTHING uses its peak power. Its extremely hard to reach peak power draw when gaming. The only time you would see peak load is probably running furmark + prime 95 simultaneously.
Third, your PSU pulls more from the wall than it is rated at. A 600w power supply at peak load will easily pull over 700 watts from the wall. This is the issue with 120 volt home power in the US. On 220/240v it would be more efficient, but still use more than whats on the box.
Fourth, TDP (Thermal Design Power) which is what GPU's and CPU's advertise, is NOT power draw, and is a horrible number to use to gauge power draw. Power draw is usually higher than TDP.
Fifth, not buying a GPU because of high powerdraw is like buying a space heater then complaining about a high power bill. Unless you are building an HTPC it is pointless to care about power draw. Just build what is best performance per dollar. The power bill between a 300w and 400w power draw is not going to be much over a 1-2 hour gaming session.
So rule of thumb:
Buy name brand, good warranty power supplies. I almost exclusively buy EVGA, Seasonic, or Corsair. Don't buy those chinese brands like apevia or from brands that don't actually make their own power supplies (like gskill which makes ram).
Overpaying for a good AIB card like Sapphire (which is by far the BEST AMD AIB card maker) or EVGA (which used to make NVidia cards) is the way to go. Better cooling, better warranty, better longevity.
Just don't buy asus. Period. Thank me later.
PS
Even if you have a 650w PSU and you buy a GPU that "recommends" a 700w powersupply, you won't blow it up, and like I said, rarely reach that peak load gaming or doing light/medium work. You rarely hit the CPU and GPU at 100% load (not the same as 100% usage) at the same time.
Also, if a game is badly optimized, dont buy it. Why incentivize this behavior by giving them your money? Same with hardware. I will refuse to buy GPU's over the price of 300-400$. I used to exclusively stick to the 200-250$ mark and made those last a decade without issue.
Firstly, per AMD's official specs, none of their GPU's require a 700w powersupply except the 6950xt, 7900xt and xtx. 600W is more than plenty for a 7800xt.
Second, the recommended power supply is to prevent any kind of failure and thus power spike/voltage spike. This does not mean that your GPU will consume the entire PSU's rated power, as a matter of fact, when gaming, NOTHING uses its peak power. Its extremely hard to reach peak power draw when gaming. The only time you would see peak load is probably running furmark + prime 95 simultaneously.
Third, your PSU pulls more from the wall than it is rated at. A 600w power supply at peak load will easily pull over 700 watts from the wall. This is the issue with 120 volt home power in the US. On 220/240v it would be more efficient, but still use more than whats on the box.
Fourth, TDP (Thermal Design Power) which is what GPU's and CPU's advertise, is NOT power draw, and is a horrible number to use to gauge power draw. Power draw is usually higher than TDP.
Fifth, not buying a GPU because of high powerdraw is like buying a space heater then complaining about a high power bill. Unless you are building an HTPC it is pointless to care about power draw. Just build what is best performance per dollar. The power bill between a 300w and 400w power draw is not going to be much over a 1-2 hour gaming session.
So rule of thumb:
Buy name brand, good warranty power supplies. I almost exclusively buy EVGA, Seasonic, or Corsair. Don't buy those chinese brands like apevia or from brands that don't actually make their own power supplies (like gskill which makes ram).
Overpaying for a good AIB card like Sapphire (which is by far the BEST AMD AIB card maker) or EVGA (which used to make NVidia cards) is the way to go. Better cooling, better warranty, better longevity.
Just don't buy asus. Period. Thank me later.
PS
Even if you have a 650w PSU and you buy a GPU that "recommends" a 700w powersupply, you won't blow it up, and like I said, rarely reach that peak load gaming or doing light/medium work. You rarely hit the CPU and GPU at 100% load (not the same as 100% usage) at the same time.
Also, if a game is badly optimized, dont buy it. Why incentivize this behavior by giving them your money? Same with hardware. I will refuse to buy GPU's over the price of 300-400$. I used to exclusively stick to the 200-250$ mark and made those last a decade without issue.
I mean, 620W at the wall, that including my lamps, phone charger, monitor, speakers, etc. Let's say the PC itself is 550W... if the PSU is about 90% efficient... someone else gets to do the math. Point I'm making is if a PC with a RX 6950 XT uses that little power at full tilt OP will be fine on his 650W PSU.
Yes there may be transient spikes but a good PSU can handle them. And overall the RX 7000 series has lower/better transients than previous generations.
For PSU's I typically go with either Seasonic or Corsair which are actually made by Seasonic. I also use EVGA and seems to be the one I've been going with as of late. I really liked EVGA but then they shutdown their GPU market but their PSU's seem to be built very well and on par with the others.
